


History Lessons

by Eggling



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 03:15:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18086417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggling/pseuds/Eggling
Summary: Victoria learns a difficult lesson about Jamie's past.





	History Lessons

“Are ye done yet?” A discarded dress sailed over the ornate divider to hit Jamie squarely in the chest, and he winced, grappling with the fabric to try and fold it neatly and set it aside. “Hey, hey, I was just askin’.”

“How am I supposed to dress myself when the ship keeps rattling around like this?” Victoria asked frustratedly.

“Och, I don’t know.” Jamie’s chair was starting to shake with the TARDIS’ vibrations, and he wrapped his arm around a nearby railing to steady itself. “’Spose I’ve gotten used to it.”

“Mm.” Another dress was passed over the divider, this time more neatly. “You seem to be used to a lot of things.”

Jamie tilted his head to one side, frowning at the divider as if he could see through it to read Victoria’s expression. “What does that mean?”

“I can’t tell where you’re from.” There was a pause and a rustling of clothes, as if Victoria was reconsidering her options. “These are much too short, Jamie. Isn’t there anything better?”

“Short?” Taking a nearby dress and holding it out in front of him, Jamie frowned at its hem. “Oh. Aye, I see what ye mean. I just thought ye might want tae wear something that was a wee bit more… modern.”

“Modern?” Victoria echoed, sticking her head out from behind the divider and wrinkling her nose pointedly at him before disappearing again. “Where are you from, if you think this is modern?”

Jamie laughed. “Before your time.” Victoria gave a disbelieving snort. “I’ve had time tae get used to things, that’s all. I’ve been with the Doctor for a while now.”

“Oh.” The chair behind the divider creaked, as if Victoria had just sat down heavily. “I don’t think I would like that very much.”

“Did ye not want tae come with us?” Jamie asked, puzzled. “Would ye rather the Doctor dropped ye off back home? ‘Cause I can tell ye now, he won’t get ye there -”

“I don’t want to go home. There’s nothing there for me now.” Victoria’s voice was so quiet that her words were almost lost in the faint rumblings and wheezings of the TARDIS. “But I wouldn’t like to lose where I came from, either.”

“Ye think I’ve lost where I came from?” Indignation sparked in Jamie’s chest. “Just ‘cause I’m used tae the TARDIS an’ thought ye might like tae dress a wee bit more like Polly did?”

“Polly?” Victoria let out a strangled noise of frustration, folding two more dresses over the divider.

“Aye. She was here before ye.”

“So you thought I’d like to wear her clothes?” Though he still could not see her face, Jamie could perfectly imagine Victoria’s derisive expression.

“I thought ye might like something that didnae remind ye of home,” he countered. “Just while you’re settling in. Polly did the same for me, when I arrived.” His old clothes had been more muddied and bloodstained than Victoria’s were, he admitted to himself – but she had been held prisoner for months, and her dress had been thick with the musty smell of it. In a way, they were the same, he realised, whatever Victoria thought. Both hurting, both tossed into a world unimaginably far apart from their own. “All I wanted was tae clean myself up an’ not think about it anymore, back then.” When Victoria poked her head around the divider, he was struck by a strange sense of staring at his younger self. “I – I thought ye might want the same thing.”

“What happened to you?” she asked. “Where did you meet the Doctor? Or...” She bit her lip, thinking about it for a moment. “I suppose – when did you meet him?”

“Seventeen forty-six,” Jamie replied. “Culloden,” he added a moment later, though he supposed it would hardly make things clearer for her. “On the worst day of my life.”

As he had expected, Victoria frowned, trying to piece together what he had said. But to his surprise, when her eyes alighted on his kilt, her face lit up with delight. “Culloden?” she echoed breathlessly. “You were a Jacobite?” Bemused, Jamie nodded. “Did you meet the prince?”

“Bein’ a Jacobite doesnae mean I met the prince,” Jamie replied, baffled by her sudden enthusiasm. “I was hardly important enough tae -”

“Did you see him?” Victoria pressed on. “What was he like?”

Resigning himself to her questions, Jamie shrugged. “Too good at gettin’ people tae follow him for his own good. How do ye know so much about it?”

Victoria laughed. The distraction had brought colour into her cheeks and a spark into her eyes, and Jamie would have been pleased by it if the conversation had been a different one. A nagging voice in his head told him that she was trying to drag herself out of her darkness through some fiction that had been made of his own, and the feeling was an unsettling one. “Everyone knows, where I’m from. We’d all read the novels.” She was beaming, and Jamie shifted his weight from side to side awkwardly, wondering what to say. When he looked at her again, the illusion of familiarity had shattered, and he was left staring at a stranger. “What was it like?”

She was watching him with such breathless excitement, and for a moment he considered lying to her. The poor lass had been through so much over the past few months, he thought, and talk of war would only upset her, especially when she had lost her father so recently. He was supposed to be settling her in, not arguing with her. But she seemed to believe that his war had been some great, heroic adventure, and the idea of it sickened him. “Too many good men died,” he said at last, his voice flat and distant. “Some of them were my friends.”

“Oh.” Victoria’s voice was small, and a faint blush tinged her cheeks. “But wasn’t it exciting?”

“Aye, it was at first,” Jamie told her gently. “An’ then we started losin’.”

“What about the way the prince escaped?” A glimmer of hope still remained in Victoria’s expression. “Flora MacDonald, and the boat to Skye?”

Jamie shrugged. “I read about it. Didnae seem that important, though. I dinnae know much about it.”

“Didn’t you want to know what happened to your prince?” Victoria’s expression made it seem as if her world was crashing down around her ears. He had shaken something she had believed to be certain, Jamie realised with a touch of regret. Shifted her world view again, when so much had been wrenched out of alignment already. “I thought you were all devoted to him.”

“I wanted tae know what they did to my people,” he said slowly. “An’ my home. That’s all I needed.” He shook his head. “Some things are more important tae know.”

“I -” Victoria’s voice trembled as she withdrew back behind the divider nervously, and Jamie felt a flash of sympathy for her. It was hardly her fault, after all, he thought. He should not blame her for what others had invented. “I _am_ sorry, Jamie, I didn’t realise -”

“Aye, I’m sorry too.” He reached over the divider, swallowing the last of his frustration and trying to sound reassuring. A moment later, Victoria took his hand, and he knew he was forgiven. “It’s been a long day, an’ ye took me by surprise. ‘Spose history remembered it a wee bit differently, that’s all.” The TARDIS clunked, and the corridors shook a little, then stilled, as if the ship had settled on the ground. “Hey, sounds like we’ve landed. Are ye done in there yet?”

“Almost!” Victoria’s hand slipped out of his own. “I suppose – oh, I suppose this one will do.” She was quiet for a moment. “How do you put it on?”

“Och, I don’t know. I never asked. Are there wee buttons?” Victoria mumbled something he supposed was a yes. At length, she stepped out from behind the divider, rolling her shoulders against the stiff fabric and looking down at herself dubiously. “There. We should go an’ find the Doctor.”

“Are you sure this is alright?” Victoria tugged on the hem of the dress awkwardly.

“Aye, aye, it’s fine.”

“ _Hmph_.” She hurried to catch up with him as he strode down the corridor. “Will you tell me about it sometime?” she asked at last.

Jamie raised his eyebrows at her. “What, the dress?” he asked teasingly.

She laughed again, and this time he felt no twinge of discomfort. “No,” she said. “About the war, and the prince.”

“One day, maybe.” Opening the door onto the corridors, Jamie ushered her out. “I think we understand each other now, so I’ll tell ye. But no’ today. We’re both too tired for that, an’ I’ll have tae think about what to tell ye.”

“You don’t have to leave out the parts you think I shouldn’t hear.” Pausing, Victoria turned back and forth to examine her reflection in a polished panel on the wall. “I don’t think I’ve looked properly at myself since the Daleks took me away,” she said quietly. “So much has happened, I – I don’t think I recognise myself anymore.

Her wide eyes were brimming with nervousness and sadness, and Jamie put his hands on her shoulders comfortingly. “Aye,” he said quietly. “I know how ye feel.”


End file.
